Sunday 28 June 2015

Ways To Improve Your Wellbeing NOW!

Physical and mental well-being is something that's really important to me and something that I'm always striving to nourish and improve. Today I thought I'd share the 'Five Ways To Wellbeing', a public health initiative focused at providing individuals the means to improve their own health and wellbeing in 5 simple, achievable steps.


My General Life | Ways to Improve Your Wellbeing NOW!!! health wellbeing wellness


The Five Ways to Wellbeing came about following research from the National Economics Foundation (or NEF) in 2008 on Mental Capital and Well-being. The aim was to identify evidence-based actions to improve an individuals' wellbeing - and so came the Five Ways to Wellbeing. 

my general life five ways to wellbeing improve your wellbeing now
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Give
This could including giving your time, giving money to charity, giving someone a smile or a hug or paying it forward to a stranger. Or why not start a blog to share something you're really passionate about with others. Because who doesn't feel better after doing something for someone else, I know I do!

Keep Learning
Learn a new skill, a new hobby, a new language. Learn more about yourself or your loved ones. Set yourself a challenge that you know you will enjoy achieving. I've taken up aerial hoop recently and I'm loving learning a new skill, read my thoughts here. Learning new things can help improve your self-esteem, encourage social interaction (which links in with connect) and may even help you be more active (again linking in with be active).

Be Active
Go for a walk or a run, play with the dog in the garden, dance like nobody's watching. Most importantly find something you enjoy that fits into your lifestyle. Regular sense of activity has been shown to be associated with increased overall wellbeing and reduced experience of depression and anxiety across all ages. You can read my top tips for keeping active here.

Take Notice
Notice the world around you, the sights, the smells, the sounds, how it feels. Be curious and take interest in what is happening in your world. Maybe try taking your morning cup of tea outside and just listening to the birds chirping, feel the wind in your hair and grass beneath your feet and just enjoy being alive in the moment.

Connect
Connect with family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, with all the people around you. These are your supports and its so important to invest time in developing these connections. Social relationships can have such a huge impact on an your overall wellbeing.

What I think is so great about the Five Ways to Wellbeing is that they can be really easy to implement into everyday life without requiring a significant amount of effort. Plus they don't have to be something huge either, they could be something small, for example a quick catch up with a friend, a walk around the block or holding the door for someone. But what's wonderful is that even the little acts add up to developing a greater sense of wellbeing. They help put wellbeing back into our own hands - take ownership of your wellbeing by taking action.

If you'd like more information on the Five Ways to Wellbeing, you can read all about the evidence base here.

In what ways do you think you could incorporate the Five Ways to Wellbeing into your own life? Why not share 3 ideas in the comments below, or drop me a tweet @mygenerallife

While you're here it would be daft not to check out my previous post: The Protein Quest - Feeling Upbeat.



1 comment:

  1. Love the one about taking notice! I'm terrible at taking things for granted! Jen -www.abalancedbelly.co.uk

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my posts and leave a comment, it's very much appreciated!!

Jordan xx